How this retreat was to escape the notice of his business companions, through whom the scandal might get wind, he did not suggest.

The truth was, Bevis found himself in an extremely awkward position, with issues he had not contemplated, and all he cared for was to avert the immediate peril of public discovery.

The easy-going, kindly fellow had never considered all the responsibility involved in making mild love--timorously selfish from the first--to a married woman who took his advances with desperate seriousness.

He had not in him the stuff of vigorous rascality, still less the only other quality which can support a man in such a situation as this--heroism of moral revolt.

So he cut a very poor figure, and was dolefully aware of it.